Duniphail or Dunphail, an estate in Edinkillie parish, Elginshire, with a station of its own name on the Highland railway, near the right bank of the Divie, 1½ mile SSE of its influx to the Findhorn river, and 8½ miles S by W of Forres. The estate, extending southward from the station to nearly the source of the Divie, belonged anciently to the Comyns, and, after passing successively to the families of Dunbar and Cumming-Bruce, came by marriage in 1864 to Thomas-John Hovell-Thurlow, who, born in 1838, in 1874 succeeded his brother as fifth Baron Thurlow (cre. 1792), and in the same year assumed the additional surnames of CummingBruce. He owns 10,518 acres in the shire, valued at £1182 per annum. Dunpbail Castle, which crowns a green conical hill, three-fourths engirt by a narrow ravine, supposed to have been at one time the channel of the Divie, was vainly besieged in the beginning of the 14th century by Randolph, Earl of Moray, after the 'Battle of the Lost Standard,' and is now a fragmentary ruin. The present mansion, erected in 1828-29, from designs by Playfair, of Edinburgh, and considerably enlarged in 1842, is a splendid edifice in the Venetian style, with very beautiful grounds. It was built on a terrace 26 feet above and 200 yards distant from the Divie; but in the great flood of 3 and 4 Aug. 1829 it was all but destroyed by that impetuous stream, the bank falling in within one yard of the foundation of the E tower. -Ord. Sr., sh. 84, 1876. See Divie.
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